Dreng looked hunted. He could not figure out whether to say yes or no. “I don’t remember.”
“Did you pass the raft on your way downstream?”
“I might have.”
“Did you untie my raft and set it adrift?”
“No.”
Once again there were shouts of: “Liar!”
Dreng said: “Look! There’s nothing that says I have to operate the ferry every day. I was given this job by Dean Degbert. He was lord of this place and he never said anything about a seven-day-a-week service.”
Aldred said: “Now I’m lord, and I say it is essential that people are able to cross the river every day. There’s a church here and a fish shop, and it’s on the road between Shiring and Combe. Your unreliable service is not acceptable.”
“So are you saying you’ll give the service to someone else?”
Several people shouted: “Yes!”
Dreng said: “We’ll see what my powerful relatives in Shiring have to say about that.”
Aldred said: “No, I’m not going to give the ferry to someone else.”
There were groans, and someone said: “Why not?”
“Because I have a better idea.” Aldred paused. “I’m going to build a bridge.”
The crowd went quiet as people took that in.
Dreng was the first to react. “You can’t do that,” he said. “You’ll ruin my business.”
“You don’t deserve your business,” Aldred said. “But as it happens, you’ll be better off. The bridge will bring more people to the village and more customers to your alehouse. You’ll probably get rich.”
“I don’t want a bridge,” he said stubbornly. “I’m a ferryman.”
Aldred looked at the crowd. “How does everyone else feel? Do you want a bridge?”
There was a chorus of cheers. Of course they wanted a bridge. It would save them time. And no one liked Dreng.
Aldred looked at Dreng. “Everyone else wants a bridge. I’m going to build one.”
Dreng turned and stamped away.
CHAPTER 29
August and September 1001
agna was looking at her three sons when she heard the noise.
The twins were asleep side by side in a wooden cradle, seven months old, Hubert plump and contented, Colinan small and agile. Osbert, two years old and toddling, was sitting on the ground, stirring a wooden spoon around an empty bowl in imitation of Cat making porridge.
The sound from outside caused Ragna to glance through the open door. It was the afternoon of a summer day: the cooks were sweating in the kitchen, the dogs were sleeping in the shade, and the children were splashing at the edges of the duck pond. Just visible in the distance, beyond the outskirts of the town, fields of yellow wheat ripened in the sun.
It looked peaceful, but there was a rising hullabaloo from the town, shouts and cries and neighing, and she knew immediately that the army was home. Her heart beat faster.
She was wearing a teal-blue gown of lightweight summer cloth: she always dressed carefully, a habit for which she was now grateful,for there was no time to change. She stepped outside and stood in front of the great hall to welcome her husband. Others quickly joined her.
The return of the army was a moment of agonizing tension for the women. They longed to see their men, but they knew that not all the combatants would return from the battlefield. They looked at one another, wondering which of them would soon be weeping tears of grief.
